A perfectly unbearable person interrupted me at this point. I have dried my tears; I have been distracted; adieu, my friend!
August 4th
I am not the only one thus afflicted. All men suffer disappointments and are deceived in their expectations. I paid the good woman under the linden tree a visit. Her eldest boy ran to meet me. His cry of joy brought out his mother. She looked despondent. Her first words were, “Oh, my dear, good gentleman, my little Hans died.” He was her youngest boy. I was speechless. “And my husband has returned from Switzerland with empty hands,” she went on. “If it had not been for some kind people he would have had to beg his way home. On the way back he was stricken with a fever.” What could I say? I gave her boy something. She asked me to accept a few apples, which I did, and left the sorrowful scene.
August 21st
Like the turning of a hand…things change with me just as quickly. Sometimes a happier outlook on life tries to struggle to the surface—alas, only for a moment. When I am lost in my dreams I can’t help thinking—what if Albert were to die? You would…she would…and then I follow this phantasmagoria until it leads me to an abyss and I draw back trembling.
When I walk out of the gate, the way I drove when I went to fetch Lotte for the dance—how different things were then! All past, all over and done with! Not a trace left of that bygone world, not a heartbeat of my former emotions. I feel like a ghost who returns to the burnt-out, ruined castle he built when he was a virile prince, and furnished with all the treasure of a glorious life, and left hopefully to his beloved son.
September 3rd
Sometimes I simply cannot understand how she can love another, how she dare—since I love her alone, so deeply, so fully, and recognize nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her!
September 4th
Yes, I am right. That’s how it is. As all nature tends toward autumn, it becomes autumn within me and all around me. My leaves turn yellow, as the leaves of the nearby trees fall to the ground. Didn’t I write to you, shortly after I came here, about a peasant lad? I enquired about him in Wahlheim the other day and was told that he had been dismissed and nobody seemed to know anything about him. Yesterday I met him quite by chance on his way to another village. I accosted him, and he told me his story, which touched me deeply, as you will readily understand when I repeat it to you. But why do I bother? Why don’t I keep what frightens and hurts me to myself? Why must I sadden you, too? Why do I constantly give you the opportunity to pity and scold me? Very well…that, too, may be a part of my destiny.
At first the poor fellow answered my questions with a quiet sadness in which I thought I could detect a certain shyness, but soon he spoke with less reserve, as if he had suddenly recognized me and himself. He was quite frank about the mistakes he had made and told me his whole sad story. I wish I could pass on every word of it to you, for you to pass judgment on it. He admitted, with something akin to the zest and happiness of remembrance itself, how his passion for his mistress had grown stronger daily, until in the end he hadn’t known what he was doing or saying or where to lay his poor head.
He couldn’t eat, drink, or sleep; he felt choked with emotion; he did things he wasn’t supposed to do and what he was supposed to do he left undone. It was as if he were pursued by demons until, one day, when he knew that she was in one of the upstairs rooms, he went to her there—more than that, he was drawn to her. She wouldn’t give in to him, so he tried to take her by force. He didn’t know what came over him. As God was his witness, his intentions had always been honorable, and he had never longed for anything so much in his life as that she should marry him. After he had spoken on and on like this for a while, he became hesitant, like someone who has more on his mind but is afraid to speak out. At last he shyly confessed to the small intimacies she had allowed him and how close she had let him draw.
He broke off several times to protest over and over again that he was not telling me all this to damage her reputation in any way…that was how he put it. He loved and respected her as much as ever; he had never talked about it before and was only telling me now to assure me that he was not a warped or unreasonable man. And here, good friend, I must repeat the old refrain I am constantly singing: if only I could put this man before you as I see him now! If only I could relate his story so you could feel how I share his fate—must share it! But enough—since you know me and my destiny only too well, you probably also know what attracts me to all unfortunate people, and to this man in particular.
On rereading this page, I see that I have forgotten to tell you the end of the story. It isn’t difficult to guess. She rejected him. Her brother happened upon them. He had always hated the poor fellow and wished him out of the house because he feared his sister might marry again, and his children thereby lose the inheritance that he had high hopes would be theirs, because the woman is childless. The brother threw him out and noised the whole thing abroad to such an extent that she could not possibly have taken him back, even if she had wanted to. Then she took on another servant and it is rumored that she has had trouble with her brother about the new man too, but this time everyone feels sure she will marry him. My poor lad, however, is determined not to live to see it.
I have not exaggerated any of this or oversentimentalized it. I would go so far as to say that I have told it laconically—yes, laconically—and have tried to make it more commonplace by telling it in conventional terms.
Love, loyalty, and passion such as this are therefore no figments of my imagination. They live and can be found in all purity among a class of people we like to call uncultured and crude. We cultured ones—cultured until there is nothing left! Read my little tale with reverence, I beg of you! Today, as I write it down, all is quiet within me. You can see by my handwriting that I am not scribbling as I usually do. Read, my dear friend, and reflect that it is your friend’s story too. Yes, it has happened to me, and the rest will happen to me too, and I am not nearly so well behaved or determined as that poor wretch, with whom I scarcely dare to compare myself.
September 5th
She wrote a little note to her husband, who is away on business. It started off with the words, “My best, my dearest one. Come home as soon as you can. I live in joyous anticipation of your return.” Just then a friend came in with the news that, owing to certain circumstances, Albert would not be able to return as soon as expected. The little note was forgotten, and in the course of the evening I came across it. I read it and smiled, and she asked me why I was smiling. “What a divine gift our imagination is!” I said. “For a moment I imagined that it was written to me.” She said nothing, but she seemed displeased by my behavior, and I was silenced.
September 6th
It was very difficult for me to decide to put aside the simple blue jacket in which I danced with Lotte for the first time, but it had become too threadbare. I have had one made exactly like it—collar and cuffs just alike, and the same yellow waistcoat and breeches. But it doesn’t have quite the desired effect. I don’t know…in time I suppose I shall grow fond of this suit, too.
September 12th
She was away for a few days. She left to fetch Albert. Today I walked into her room, she came to meet me, and I kissed her hand, my heart overflowing with joy. A canary flew from the mirror onto her shoulder. “My new friend,” she said and coaxed him onto her hand. “I brought him for the children. He is such a darling. Look, when I give him bread, he flutters and picks it up so neatly. And he kisses me. Look!”
She held the little creature to her mouth, and it touched her beloved lips so sweetly, as if it could feel the bliss it was being granted.
“Let him kiss you too,” she said, stretching out her hand to me, with the bird on it. His little beak found its way from her mouth to mine, and the little peck it gave me was like a breath, a premonition of the delights of love.
“I wouldn’t say that his kiss was entirely without desire,” I said. “He seeks food, and the kiss leaves
